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Pissarro Gallery
Born on St. Thomas on July 10, 1803 in the town of Charlotte Amalie, Camille Pissarro is probably the Virgin Islands most famous native son. He is considered to be the leader of the Impressionism movement of painting. Local boy makes good!
Pissarro lived in St. Thomas as a youth, leaving to attend boarding school in Paris, then returning to St. Thomas in 1847 to help his father run a dry goods business. The Pissarro family operated a general store in what is now known as the Pissarro Building, at 14 Dronnigens Gade in Charlotte Amalie. The family lived upstairs over the store.
At boarding school in Paris the director noted his artistic talent and interests, and advised him to take “advantage of his life in the tropics by drawing coconut trees.” The young Pissarro took his advice, and took his sketchbook with him when his father sent him to the port to supervise arrivals of merchandise. He drew what he saw in the harbor and around the island in his spare time.
However during the following 5 years of working in the family business while trying to become an artist, Pissarro did not get his parents permission to devote himself completely to painting, so he ran away to Caracas, Venezuela. He was 23 at the time, and while he was there he studied under Fritz Melbye, a Danish painter from Copenhagen. In Caracas her produced drawings, watercolors, and paintings, signing many of them as "Pizzarro". As he noted in a letter to an art dealer and collector:
Living in Saint Thomas in 1852, employed in a well-paying business, I could not endure the situation any longer, and without thinking, I abandoned all I had there and fled to Caracas, thus breaking the bonds that tied me to bourgeois life. What I suffered is incredible, but I have lived: what I am suffering now is terrible, much worse even than when I was young, full of zeal and enthusiasm. Now I am convinced that my future is dead. Yet I think that if I had to start all over again, I would not hesitate to follow the same path."
Pissarro eventually returned to St. Thomas and his parents gave him their support as a full time artist. He then left the Virgin Islands for Paris, where he eventually became the leader of a group of painters that included Renoir, Monet, Degas, and Cezanne, who formed the initial Impressionistic style of painting.
Pissarro was an active painter up until the time he died in 1903.
Pissarro lived in St. Thomas as a youth, leaving to attend boarding school in Paris, then returning to St. Thomas in 1847 to help his father run a dry goods business. The Pissarro family operated a general store in what is now known as the Pissarro Building, at 14 Dronnigens Gade in Charlotte Amalie. The family lived upstairs over the store.
At boarding school in Paris the director noted his artistic talent and interests, and advised him to take “advantage of his life in the tropics by drawing coconut trees.” The young Pissarro took his advice, and took his sketchbook with him when his father sent him to the port to supervise arrivals of merchandise. He drew what he saw in the harbor and around the island in his spare time.
However during the following 5 years of working in the family business while trying to become an artist, Pissarro did not get his parents permission to devote himself completely to painting, so he ran away to Caracas, Venezuela. He was 23 at the time, and while he was there he studied under Fritz Melbye, a Danish painter from Copenhagen. In Caracas her produced drawings, watercolors, and paintings, signing many of them as "Pizzarro". As he noted in a letter to an art dealer and collector:
Living in Saint Thomas in 1852, employed in a well-paying business, I could not endure the situation any longer, and without thinking, I abandoned all I had there and fled to Caracas, thus breaking the bonds that tied me to bourgeois life. What I suffered is incredible, but I have lived: what I am suffering now is terrible, much worse even than when I was young, full of zeal and enthusiasm. Now I am convinced that my future is dead. Yet I think that if I had to start all over again, I would not hesitate to follow the same path."
Pissarro eventually returned to St. Thomas and his parents gave him their support as a full time artist. He then left the Virgin Islands for Paris, where he eventually became the leader of a group of painters that included Renoir, Monet, Degas, and Cezanne, who formed the initial Impressionistic style of painting.
Pissarro was an active painter up until the time he died in 1903.
